How Colin Mansell started their web page design journey

Company name

Artweb.net

Overview

Artweb.net is a new global art portal that will allow artists from around the world to upload, display and sell their work online.

The site is currently in development and will be ready to launch in December. We have decided to open up the design of the site to the 99designs community as we have been really impressed with some of the work produced for our previous projects.

The site is expected to become a major global art portal over the next 12 months with many thousands of member artists, and so the winning site design needs to be industry-leading, clean, contemporary and scalable.

This is a large and growing project, and there will be additional budget for page designs from the winning designer after the contest.

Tell us a bit about who you are and the people you reach

The target audience is professional / semi-professional visual artists, which includes painters, photographers, sculptors and print makers.

We will also be appealing to art galleries who represent professional artists, and so we need to reflect the sense of an art gallery in the design: white walls, a clean, well-designed space that lets the art be the central focus.

Requirements

The main purpose of the site is to show pieces of art in a clean and uncluttered environment, very much like the feel of a modern art gallery.

So use white backgrounds, light lines and subtle shading, and use a limited amount of colour, so that the art is the thing that really stands out as the central focus. This project is all about creating a clean website that feels well-organised and uncluttered.

For the logo, we have had 2 directions created by a branding design team here in Vancouver, and we want to give you the flexibility to work with the logo you think will work best within your design, so which logo you want to use is up to you - we have not decided.

It would be interesting to see how you might extend the use of the red dot in the logo in other subtle places on the site, but dont overdo it (the red dot is often used to show a piece is 'sold' in art galleries).